the visitor at once that she was a very
commonplace person.

There were three girls and a boy in the room, busy at sewing or reading.
None of them was introduced, but the air of the place was Bohemian, and
the conversation soon became general. All talked except one of the girls:
she sat reading, and several times when the young man glanced over her way
she was looking at him. Shelley stayed an hour, spending a very pleasant
time, but as he had no opportunity of stating his case to the philosopher
he made an engagement to call again.

As he groped his way downstairs and walked homewards he mused. The widow
Clairmont, whom Godwin had married, was a worldling, that was sure; her
daughter Jane was good-looking and clever, but both she and Charles, the
boy, were the children of their mother--he had picked them out
intuitively. The little young woman with brown eyes and merry ways was
Fanny Godwin, the first child of Mary Wollstonecraft and adopted daughter
of Godwin. The tall slender girl who was so very quiet was the daughter of
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.

"Ye gods, what a pedigree!" said Shelley.

The young man called again, and after explaining his situation was advised
to go back home and make peace with his wife and father at any cost of
personal intellectual qualms. Philosophy was all right; but life was one
thing and philosophy another. Live with Harriet as he had vowed to
do--love was a good deal glamour, anyway; write poetry, of course, if he
felt like it, but keep it to himself. The world was not to be moved by
enthusiastic youth. Godwin had tried it--he had been an enthusiastic youth
himself, and that was why he now lived in Somerstown instead of
Piccadilly. Move in the line of least resistance.

Shelley went away shocked and stunned. Going by Old Saint Pancras Church
he turned back to step in a moment and recover his scattered senses. He
walked through the cool, dim, old building, out into the churchyard, where
toppling moss-covered gray slabs marked the resting-places of the sleeping
dead. All seemed so cool and quiet and calm there! The dead are at rest:
they have no vexatious problems.

A few people were moving about, carelessly reading the inscriptions. The
young man unconsciously followed their example; he passed slowly along one
of the walks, scanning the stones. His eye fell upon the word
"Wollstonecraft," marked on a plain little slate slab. He paused and,
leaning over removed his hat and read,